A long answer which I attempt to tie back to the topic at the end.
I was looking at one such business selling the idea that we create our destiny through our thoughts and that this destiny is going to be better than everything we ever had before ... a
young couple incorporating BK teachings and some of its language and iconography into their own cult. In return, I see one of them,
Michael Mackintosh is credited by the BKWSU for his marketing assistance to the BKs for their "Humanrights Spiritualrights" PR campaign.
The whole New Age/Personal Development market is, of course, huge ... it's estimated to be worth billions of dollars each year. The total U.S. self-improvement market alone is estimated to be worth around $10 billion. Do the BKs smell that? Of course they do ...
Looking at the couple's list of influences ...
many of which - especially BKism - are contradictory to each other; and most of which, if someone suggested they could be mastered in a lifetime synthesised with the others, would have their founders rolling their eyes with disbelief ... it left me feeling that all one really needs to be in this game is a good actor. To learn 'the language' and follow 'the script'. To have good marketing skills. And it helps to be good looking, have an elevated but ultimately unaccountable "spirit guide", and dabble in NLP or hypnosis.
Are these what you would say are all just your ego props and edifices?
I have never studied psychology but I ran a shop once. A small business. Most of these are small business which last for a limited period. A few - like Deepack Chopra etc - are big businesses. It is an industry with well established producers, networks and venues etc.
Spiritually, I tend to analyse things from the 'economical aspects' outwards. There is no better metaphor for understanding where someone's intentions are at ... than looking at how they make money and interact with others over economic transactions. As every tax man knows ... following the money trail. It's a manifestation of their energy after all.
There is one dodgy small business model which is very simple, but works. It's ultimately unethical, but it makes money.
Basically, what it does is exploits people's curiosity. It's perpetrators know that a large percentage of individuals will gamble a few Pounds or Dollars, and a small percentage of wealthy individuals will large sums on "something". That they gain pleasure out of disposing of their excess money. So trade anything for it ... it does not really matter what ... they are just going to spend it on handbags, clothes they won't wear or something else.
Then, in marketing, there are different already established price points; 1 (postcard) ... 10 (book) ... 25 (seminar) ... 500 (course) ... 5000 (life changing experience in remote luxury location) ... so don't question them, just use them. There is also a marketing pattern or curve of interest which, if you hit the vein of interest, rises quickly (
as public curiosity falls in your lap) ... then falls quickly (as people discover it does not work or you are a dick) ... and then afterwards you are left almost back where you were before, perhaps with a few customer/followers and a long slow flat business progression line. Therefore, the idea is make as much money as you are going up as you are definitely going to crash down afterwards. No amount of positive thinking will stop that. I would say, in the West, the BKs are flat lining.
I wonder how many people swept along by the marketing of this industry ... an industry which has basically been marketing the same ideas in different wrappers for, perhaps, 80 years (give or take a couple of world wars) ... are aware that their interest is just as 'manufactured' as their taste in shoes or fashion?